[lug] TFTP, bootp, u-boot...ethernet drivers

[Maxwell Spangler]

On Wed, 2013-12-11 at 02:31 +0000, stimits at comcast.net wrote:


> 
> Just a related curiosity, prior to the o/s loading on newer UEFI
> setups, are the drivers which support hand-off to the o/s all written
> in assembler? Does lack of o/s in this early boot stage mean drivers
> from something like linux are completely incompatible at that stage
> without a massive rewrite?


Think of UEFI as an MS-DOS like operating system.  It's not a modern day
operating system with multi-tasking, security, memory management,
graphics, etc., but it does offer an organized path of execution for a
variety of components including drivers to access devices, access to
filesystems for programs, and a way to make modifications to the system
and launch programs.

You can, for example, boot UEFI, load some drivers, go exploring on a
filesystem, configure some hardware and then do a 'lanboot' from the
command menu to start the process of doing a traditional PXE boot.  Or
just boot up, and PXE boot.

When you think about UEFI vs BIOS, I would suspect that anything BIOS
can do that you want to keep, you should find available in UEFI.  Lean
towards that optimism, at least.

The API for UEFI is very different from Linux, so you can't use a Linux
driver directly on UEFI.

And I think UEFI would be written in C, not assembly.  Too complicated
for Assembly.  Too big, too many structures.

-- 
Maxwell Spangler
========================================================================
Linux & Open Source Systems Engineer
Fort Collins, Colorado, USA
http://www.maxwellspangler.com/

-- 
Maxwell Spangler
========================================================================
Linux & Open Source Systems Engineer
Fort Collins, Colorado, USA
http://www.maxwellspangler.com/
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